Rick Santorum and
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) are typically described as the staunchest social
conservatives in the GOP presidential primary. On LGBT issues, however, Herman
Cain is about as far-right as you can get.

The former CEO of
Godfather's Pizza has called homosexuality a
"sin" and a "choice,"
recommended impeaching President
Obama over his decision not to defend the Defense of Marriage Act, and
suggested that adoption agencies have a First Amendment right to discriminate
against gay couples.

Months before he
even announced his candidacy, Cain was a proud supporter of two of America’s
most powerful and extreme anti-gay hate groups.

Near the end of
2010, the Family Research Council (FRC) launched the “Start Debating, Stop Hating” website in
response to being designated an anti-gay hate group by the
Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). The website asked supporters to sign
a statement backing both the FRC and a
number of other anti-gay groups listed by the
SPLC:

We, the undersigned, stand in solidarity with Family Research
Council, American Family Association, Concerned Women of America, National
Organization for Marriage, Liberty Counsel and other pro-family organizations
that are working to protect and promote natural marriage and family. We
support the vigorous but responsible exercise of the First Amendment rights of
free speech and religious liberty that are the birthright of all Americans.

Herman Cain – along with Santorum, Bachmann, and over a hundred of America’s most prominent anti-gay activists – signed the statement.

In doing so, they were “stand[ing] in solidarity” with – as SPLC recently wrote – “the most important anti-gay lobby in this country.” SPLC added:

They are also among the chief purveyors of lies about LGBT
people. They have both regularly pumped out propaganda asserting that gay men molest children at far higher rates
than their heterosexual counterparts – a claim that has been debunked by
virtually all the recognized scientific authorities in the field. The FRC has
claimed that gay activists “work to
normalize sex with boys,” seek to “abolish all age of consent laws and to
eventually recognize pedophiles as the ‘prophets’ of a new sexual order,” and
support anti-bullying programs solely in order to promote homosexuality.
The AFA has declared that “homosexuality
gave us Adolph Hitler… the Nazi war machine and six million dead Jews,”
suggested that gay sex be punished like heroin use, and said that the
“homosexual agenda” endangers “every fundamental right” in the Constitution,
including religious freedom. Both groups
have enthusiastically promoted “reparative therapy,” which claims against
the bulk of evidence that it can “cure” gay men and lesbians and make them
heterosexual, but in fact has left a string of people behind who were badly
hurt in the process.